Spill Zone   

Spill Zone, Book #1

By Scott Westerfeld   

ISBN: 9781596439368

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra                   

Summary:

Three years ago an event destroyed the small city of Poughkeepsie, forever changing reality within its borders. Uncanny manifestations and lethal dangers now await anyone who enters the Spill Zone.

The Spill claimed Addison’s parents and scarred her little sister, Lexa, who hasn’t spoken since. Addison provides for her sister by photographing the Zone’s twisted attractions on illicit midnight rides. Art collectors pay top dollar for these bizarre images, but getting close enough for the perfect shot can mean death or worse.

When an eccentric collector makes a million-dollar offer, Addison breaks her own hard-learned rules of survival and ventures farther than she has ever dared. Within the Spill Zone, Hell awaits and it seems to be calling Addison’s name. (Goodreads)

Review:

Spill Zone is the first book in a new graphic novel series by Scott Westerfeld, with Alex Puvilland as the illustrator. Spill Zone is the story of a teen, that enters the “Spill Zone” (previously known as the town of Poughkeepsie) to take photos of the area that was destroyed by a radiation spill (but nobody knows what the PO’ town Spill was, exactly), in an effort to sell her photos to support her younger sister and herself as their parents were killed in the radiation spill three years prior.

My journey into reading graphic novels is quite limited but this first book in the series is a good start to an interesting storyline. I found the artwork superb and kind of creepy all at the same time. Not necessarily my style, but certainly engaging and appropriate for the story line. I quite liked the use of colour – there was a lot of it. Depicting the strange creatures in the spill zone was fascinating and took me a bit to appreciate what the artist was trying to do with the depictions.

I must say, Lexa’s doll friend – Vespertine, was kind of creepy. What is her story?  Vespertine could communicate with Lexa telepathically and she seemed to be on the lookout to help Addison from getting into too much trouble when she entered into the forbidden zone.

It will be interesting in future books to see how Don Rae (a character that was effectively just introduced with minimal depth in this story), Addison and Lexa interact. Especially as it seems that Don Rae and Lexa were affected somehow by being in the spill zone when the radiation leak occurred in their own towns.

This was an interesting start to a new series. While I did not love this book, I would like to carry on as a lot of questions were presented, with no clear resolution. I suspect that was what was intended ☺ Get the reader hooked for the long haul.

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*